Electromagnetic Characterization and Measurement of Conductive Aircraft CFRP Composite for Lightning Protection and EMI Shielding

This article presents a new conductive carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) aircraft composite and its electromagnetic (EM) characterization for tackling the lightning direct effect and enhancing the EM shielding effectiveness (SE). The CFRP composite design is deliberated for ameliorating the electrical conductivity of composite. With the aid of equivalent medium modeling, the inherent EM properties of the composite have been investigated. The simulated results illustrate that the lightning strike protection (LSP) capability and the EM shielding behavior of the newly developed aircraft composite have been improved as compared to the original neat CFRP composite, and comparable to that with copper mesh as a protective layer on top. Moreover, an artificial lightning experiment has been carried out in accordance with SAE ARP5416 by mimicking the natural lightning strike attachment. The SE of the proposed composite prototype has also been measured by using the EM waveguide transmission line method. The physical experiments have effectively validated the simulation results and demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed conductive CFRP composite on LSP and SE.